


for what you've tamed

by frostbitten_cheeks



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 08-12/19 canon mark, Dan Howell-centric, M/M, that's been uncanoned completley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22294870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostbitten_cheeks/pseuds/frostbitten_cheeks
Summary: Phil wants all the dogs. Dan thinks about the future and has a characteristic crisis of minuscule proportions, because being a fishparent is just not enough.alternatively titled,Dogs, Kids and Norman: the Final Battle.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	for what you've tamed

**Author's Note:**

> the thing that happens when you attempt writing canon-compliant fics about real people and don't post it in time, is that it becomes wildly uncanon Quickly. so like. yeah, happy new year, pretend 2019 is not over yet.
> 
> i started out wanting to write a fic about The Dog Situation in relation to norman. a short character study later, it escalated a whole lot. this is also extreme dialogue heavy, which is really hard for me. i don't write it easily, and i hate ooc speech in dnp fics. fingers crossed i succeeded a little!

London gets too hot in August. They spend most afternoons on the sofa, eyelids heavy and fabrics sticking to their bodies, scrolling through varying media devices. Phil has gotten into the habit of laughing out loud at memes on Twitter then texting them to Dan, even when they're sitting in the same room. Dan usually replies to them by thwacking Phil on the head with a cushion, disapprovingly.

At five pm on a particularly sweaty Sunday, Phil texts Dan a photo, his toes nestled against Dan's calves for premium location in front of the AC. Dan stretches his arm across the sofa with foreknowledge, lazily pawing at a cushion, until he opens the photo to discover a spotted terrier puppy.

" _No_ ," he emphasizes loudly as Phil twists his face pitifully, turning large eyes at him. Dan mercilessly hits him on the head anyway. 

  
  
  


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Dogs follow them everywhere over that summer. They bump into them at pride parades, on the street, under tables at meetings. They even meet a sick fan through a charity and walk into the hospital room to discover there are puppies involved. Dan concludes that the universe somehow figured out that they've got real thick skulls and is trying to lay it on strongly, but draws the line when a stranger dog jumps into his lap at a restaurant. Phil eagerly takes pictures for Instagram, doesn't seem concerned with the providence of it all.

"We're not getting a dog," Dan clears, quite possibly for the hundredth time, when they're eating dinner that week. Phil's chromecasting the next episode of the show they're watching onto the television and inaccidentally plays a video of border collies chasing sheep instead.

"But Daniel," Phil says, doesn't try very hard nonetheless. Dan thinks that maybe even Phil remembers one or two of their previous hundred conversations on the matter, but has frankly learned from the past decade to expect unfair war measures.

"Yesterday you woke me up in panic because you forgot to water the plants for _one goddamn day_ ," Dan gestures with his chopsticks threateningly, isn't persuaded by the smile at the corner of Phil's mouth. That guy is _allergic_ , for Christ's sake. "I will not be responsible for the murder of a small being, Phil Lester."

Phil hugs his bowl to his chest, humphs. "It can be a big being," he says, gets Dan's feet in his face for it.

  
  
  


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And yet, Dan finds himself looking into a petshop on a Wednesday.

"I'm a right mess," he mutters under his breath, and the guinea pig in the window jerks its tiny head in agreement. 

He buys a Betta fish. A fish, he reasons to himself, is not a dog; he keeps telling himself that, staring at the colorful fins flapping in the clear plastic bag, all the way home. When Phil spots the fish he first blinks, then lights up, then exclaims, "You adopted a Norman!", and Dan acknowledges his mistakes immediately.

Norman becomes the center of their attention for a few weeks. They monitor his every move, measure his every meal, and Dan stares defeatedly at the ceiling as Phil buys unnecessary amount of aquarium equipment for him, swears he can tell by Norman's colours that he's happier because of it.

"It's a fish," Dan reminds Phil, or maybe himself, or maybe Norman, because the little fella is getting spoiled. He says this again and again but he still takes the late shift when Phil decides Norman's looking ill, stays up all night with what he pretends is not parental terror.

  
  
  


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So, the thing is:

Dan's friend Carla gave birth to a summer baby. He was tiny and beautiful, blonde wispy hair and toothless smiles, and he made little gurgling sounds when Dan came to visit, Phil trailing in the doorway after him.

Dan offered him a teddy bear that he was much too young to hold, and Phil looked at Carla, nervously, kept his hands in his pockets like he didn't know where else to put them.

Unexpectedly, the baby loved Phil. He chewed on Phil's thumb, let Phil cradle him awkwardly, didn't react at his obvious panic. He seemed as amused by Phil's soft animal noises as babies could be, and Dan stared from a reachable distance, smiling gently.

Later, in the cab, Phil said, "Babies are like, the scariest thing in the _world_ ," and Dan made a face and said, "What," squinting. Phil shrugged, eyes mostly focused on his Nintendo, said, "They're adorable, but they're so squishy! And they never like me, which freaks me out, like, get your baby away from me, Susan, it might start _screaming,_ you know?"

Dan did not know. Dan said, "Who the fuck is Susan, you twit," and then, in quick succession, "But the baby loved you," sounded somewhat desperate even to his own ears.

Phil nodded distractedly in half-hearted agreement, and that was the end of it. At home, he fried some rice and checked his email and cooed over a Labrador on the internet, and Dan felt his wild thoughts scatter around the room uncontrollably.

  
  
  


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Phil comes home three nights before Halloween carrying a pair of giant pumpkins, sets them down on the kitchen counter with a heavy exhale. Dan leans against the wall, one eyebrow arched, but assembles a spooky tunes playlist in solidarity. They listen to it over the next few hours of Phil carving shapes while Dan's scrolling through his phone companionably.

Bryony texts him an invitation to a costume party at a friend's flat downtown. She sends an accompanying photo of her facepaint equipment that's captioned _dont u fuckers dare to come casual_ , and Dan nudges Phil, texts her back a photo of a pumpkin that's currently looking more like a deformed screaming emoji than anything else.

On Halloween night, the two of them knock on Bryony's door in full costumes for the first time in years. Phil picks a sparkly fish outfit, largely inspired by his Norman beauty video, while Dan comes dressed in a patchwork of an ensemble. He's got ridiculous clown shoes and a red nose and cat ears and drawn-on whiskers, a cowboy outfit complete with a plastic revolver, a superhero cape tied to his shoulders. Bryony opens the door, blanches horribly, as Dan unapologetically fingerguns her and says, "I'm going as commitment issues."

The party's just building up when they get there. Bryony shoves them along to pour three glasses of wine, maintains that in their thirties they're only allowed to get drunk on overpriced alcohol; she very pointedly doesn't look at Dan's monstrosity of a costume while she drinks. Dan takes the offered Merlot gratefully, decides that he’s definitely left shots of vodka far behind in his rearview mirror of youthful stupidity, clinks his glass against Phil's with a smile.

The wine turns out to be strong, though. Hours later, Bryony’s ditched them to talk politics with some colleagues and they’re stood alone in a corner, fuzzily bantering about whether _wombat_ can be used as an insult. Phil says, “Your mum’s a wombat!”, a little too intensely, and Dan laughs maniacally, feels it right down to his bones.

People come and go, exchanging pleasantries. Most of them frown at Dan uncertainly, don’t risk trying to guess. By the third Joker asking him if he’s referencing to something, he grows tired of the clearly obtuse crowd, because honestly, with all due respect to Joaquin Phoenix, Dan’s making a clever statement about his shortcomings in a cutesy form and it should be _appreciated_. 

He turns back to Phil to say just that. Phil's got blue glitter around his eyes that Dan personally helped glue in front of their bathroom mirror earlier, and Dan finds that he still wants to thumb it, wants to feel the texture of it on Phil's stubbly skin. He says, "Can't believe people here don't appreciate my genius," haughtily, mostly just as an excuse to lean a little closer, attention unfocusing and refocusing on the shimmer at Phil's temples.

Phil snorts into his wine, undignified. "Not deciding on a costume does not qualify as _genius_ , Danny-boy."

He scratches at the makeup on his neck and Dan reaches out to touch as well, absently, finishes his drink. " _Rude_ ," he says, doesn't mind too much. "It's who I am, Phillip, I'm expressing my true self -"

"Oh, stop lying, you rat," Phil interrupts, grin stretching his glinting face wide. "You do not have commitment issues, this is a lie. You're a lying liar who lies!"

Dan stops. Phil's voice pitches up and his neck is still distracting, and yet - " _Excuse_ you," in the background, someone starts playing Harry Styles and Dan's feeling it vibrating through his tipsy body. He has been telling friends and family and strangers online about his commitment issues for years, considers it a part of his brand, but also, a part of _him_. "No, honestly, what?"

Phil doesn't seem to notice the change in tone, sways his hips to the beat and flaps the fins on his head straight into a passerby's face, unintentionally. "Listen, you have the opposite of commitment issues, okay, you get too attached - to projects and shows and your _friends_ , Dan, we've had the same friends for _years_ , and - and - you have _me._ "

Dan stares, numb. After a moment, he says, "Fuck," very eloquently, and Phil stops semi-dancing, and Harry's still singing, and the world shifts sideways, just a tad.

  
  
  


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They cut the party short, go home after a brief goodbye to Bryony. Dan spends the cab ride back staring out the window, processing. Phil lets him, taps his fingers on Dan's forearm to assure him he’s still there, doesn’t ask anything other than that.

Dan goes up to the roof when they get home. Phil’s begonias are looking better and the fat pigeon that’s taken its permanent residence there is still awake. He lowers himself into the chaise lounge ungracefully and spends an awful long time staring at the sky, tails of thoughts chasing one another in his head. He feels off-balance, like he might fall over; the wine, probably, doesn't help.

It's a philosophical kind of moment, Dan reckons. The clouds shift with the wind and he sits there for so long, staring and thinking, that the temperatures drop drastically. A long while after, Phil comes up with Dan's discarded jacket thrown over his shoulder, wraps it around Dan wordlessly.

He sits, asks lightly, "Is it 2013 again? Are the existential crises back?", but Dan knows, vividly, that it's Phil's tactful way of asking how Dan's mental health's doing.

Dan says, "You need to shut up," but his voice is affectionate. A moment passes and all his thoughts tie together, become something real. He says, softly, "I think I've got, like. Unsexy daddy issues."

Somewhere, far away, a past Dan who joked about therapists tracing all of one's problems back to their father is eating his own hat, spitefully. 

Phil doesn't seem shaken. He moves closer, slips his hand between Dan's knees for warmth, and says, "Dan -- I think. That this is maybe not new. The way you build your life around the fear of fucking up like you think he did. Rejecting responsibility for things because you're afraid to let them down."

Phil’s hand warms the inside of Dan’s knees; the clouds pass over, slowly. They talk about it in hushed voices, huddled together for comfort. The fat pigeon sticks around until it becomes evident that they don't intend on feeding it, then scuttles away, pecking shamelessly at Phil's planters.

Dan runs his thumb over the soft skin of Phil's wrist, lets it ground him. Phil says, much later, "For the record, I totally think all of you is sexy, even the issued bits," and his eyes are scrunched up fondly over his glasses. Dan allows himself the heavy feeling of his fading buzz and his thigh pressed against Phil's and a bones-deep conversation, balances himself with the weightlessness of scooping his insides out. He doesn't even pinch Phil's arm for the cheesiness. 

Instead, he drops his head to Phil's shoulder, and they watch the streetlights of the neighborhood from their roof.

  
  
  


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They leave Norman with Martyn when they fly to Japan, and Dan shares a look with him over Phil's head when the latter makes fishy faces at the tank, promises Norman to be back soon.

Dan totally doesn't bend a bit to look Norman in the eyes before they go. And if he does, well, fish have short fucking memories, alright, he doesn't want Norman to only remember one dad when they return.

In Japan, they run longer baths and take a million pictures and walk everywhere wide eyed, but also: they meet Duncan and Mimei's dog.

"Of motherfucking course," he says flatly when the fluffball begins barking at Phil excitedly. A short while after it also licks Dan from chest to forehead and he falls for its charms easily, but this is so not the point. The point is, dogs follow them to _Japan_.

"Why don't you two get a dog when you go back," Mimei asks innocently over green tea, does not know the consequences. Dan catches Phil's eyes across the table and blurts out, "Phil no," just as Phil manages to say, "Dan _yes,_ " and they have a staring match for three seconds, leave it unexplained. Duncan and Mimei would both take Phil's side, Dan knows, and Phil's already got the whole of the internet behind him, it's too much of an advantage.

Japan's easy in a completely new way. In Osaka, Phil giggles himself into hysterics, leans his weight into Dan's side for support, and the places where they’ve touched leave Dan feeling hypersensitive for the rest of the day. In Kyoto, they drink Koshu by the water and the back of their hands brush, and Dan's never really felt the lack of physical contact in public, hasn't registered it as a loss, but now. He switches the glass to his other hand and lets his fingers graze Phil's, momentarily, but there. Phil smiles back at him, and their faces could light up the street.

Four and a half years earlier, standing on Mount Fuji, Phil made a really bad dad joke in front of the breathtaking view. Dan remembers this very clearly: his hair was windswept and there were uneven red patches high on his cheeks and his tongue was poking out, perpetually laughing at his own jokes. Dan looked at him and thought, _marry me_ , not for the first time.

It was never viable. He took his thoughts back home packed in his suitcase, terror and thrill in equal amount; by now, they've simmered down into a fixed sort of knowledge. In Japan of the present, Dan looks at Phil and thinks, fondly, _marry me_ , and knows that there will probably never be a last time.

  
  
  


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Dan lets his feet dangle over the bridge, watches the koi swim around in shades of red and orange and yellow, careless about his existence. Phil slides their backpack off and drops it unceremoniously in Dan's lap, folds his limbs to sit down next to Dan on the damp wood.

"I'm not sure we're supposed to sit here," Dan says, casual, has no intention of getting up. They've already Instagramed every possible angle of this garden and yet it seems to him that he hasn't documented it enough. 

Phil bends his knee, rests it snugly against Dan's ribcage. "I feel like we're cheating on Norman," he says, completely disregards Dan's concern for proper fishpond etiquette, "looking at all these fish that aren't him. Goodbye, evil fish! Go away! Our hearts only belong to one!"

The koi continue their slow circle, nonchalant in their defiance. Dan smiles crookedly, singsongs, " _Good fishy boys_ ," avoids Phil's finger poking at his side goodnaturedly. "We should have a fishpond when we move. It's so aesthetic, I can't stop looking at it."

"Only after Norman dies of old age and a long happy life," Phil says, doesn't really say no. Their future home is an abstract concept taking form by ten years of daydreaming, snippets of Phil's tomato bushes and Dan's exposed brick walls and an office with big attic windows shaping it into a vague existence.

They've been having obscure conversations about the future more often in Japan - more often these last few months in general. A collection of agreements they've shared over time have been resurfacing, bits and pieces of tiles and layouts and wall colours. The new year is waiting ahead and their daydreams have been getting more tangible, the future within reach.

Dan and Phil, at the very core of them, talk about _everything_. Most days Dan can hardly remember a time when this wasn’t the case, sometimes legitimately thinks that maybe he just opened a Skype chat with Phil for the first time a decade ago, promptly began voicing his every thought and never really stopped. Dan never shuts up, and Phil doesn’t have a filter, and so. 

And so -- they've been having obscure conversations about the future more often in Japan. And Dan’s cool about it, is better at his responsibility issues, maybe, a little, is at least kind of trying. Lets himself talk to Phil about the house, about the new year, about their plans now that there’s nothing laid out. And Phil talks about real estate and timing and gets excited about the possibility of the goddamn dog, but Phil, well.

Phil doesn’t mention kids. And Dan knows they’ve discussed having them, because they talk about _everything_ , but Phil doesn’t mention any fucking kids and sometimes talking isn’t enough.

A koi splashes in the water, wetting the hem of Phil’s jeans. He says, “Hey!”, adoringly, and Dan thinks that, okay, at least having a crisis in Japan is done with better view.

  
  
  


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All in all, the thing is maybe also this:

From age twenty one and forward, Dan started saying to anyone and everyone that would listen, "I'll do whatever it takes to be the best father in existence."

But he was twenty one, and so his grandma patted his hand and said, "That's nice, dear," and his friends looked appropriately freaked out, and his mum sort of startled and said, "Uh," and then proceeded with nothing. But back then there was also the whole sexuality thing, so.

Phil wheeled his desk chair towards him and said, "What, better than Danny Tanner?", and they got derailed into a conversation about rebooting Full House, kind of forgot. The internet was obviously all for him, but the internet had begun to scare him around then, it didn't really count.

Now he's twenty eight, and his grandma side-eyes him and says, "Well, get on it," and his friends are horrifically exhausted from changing nappies, and his mum smiles at him somewhat sadly and says, "Blimey, I hope so," doesn't quite specify.

Phil takes this nonchalantly, says, "Of course you will," goes on sorting through their bills, casual. The internet continues to scare him so he doesn't confer with it these days, stares at Phil's back in the office, silent.

And the thing:

Phil sees dogs everywhere. He sees them in cafes, he follows them on Twitter, he waves at them in passing cars. Dan sees them too, but never in the same way, always feels a clench of longing in his chest when he's looking more at Phil's face than at wagging tails.

Because Dan, age approximately twenty three and forward, started seeing babies everywhere.

These days, it appears that Phil doesn't see them at all.

  
  
  


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Phil's been called into a meeting the morning after they land, and so he goes out early, takes his jetlag and a muffin with him. Dan's left to make the journey over to Martyn's on his own, quite ready to bring Norman home and settle back into routine.

Martyn's still in his sweats when he opens the door, gestures Dan inside with his ear pressed against his cell while saying loudly, "No, yeah, Jack, I'm with you, but the UX team definitely disagrees." He mouthes at Dan to pour himself a cup of tea from the pot, and Dan goes to retrieve a mug from the cupboard, wriggling his fingers at Norman's tank in greeting. He tunes out Martyn's voice in the background, either solving a business dilemma or planning an assassination; by the cut of his voice, there's no telling.

"Sorry 'bout that," Martyn says once he effectively shuts someone down over the phone, settles at the table opposite Dan's perch at the counter. "So how was Japan? Corn, Manny and I've been following along religiously."

Dan is a composed adult, so he doesn't reenact Bella's _Nessie_ scene right there and then. Instead, he lets his tongue fall into enthusiastically telling a short recap of their trip's events. Martyn laughs, asks to see some pictures, tells him a little about the exciting adventures of a Betta fish and his favourite aunt and uncle.

"Where _is_ Corn?" Dan asks, eventually, his eyes wrinkled happily over Cornelia's futile attempt to teach Norman to react at chosen Swedish words. "We got her a scarf she's gonna love, you should come over for some gift giving."

Martyn reaches across the table to draw the newspaper close, flips to the entertainment section. "Visiting her cousins, they're up at Woodstock for a few days. They've got two kids, five and three - they're stupid excited to be in the UK, as kids would."

Dan hums. "Are they cute? Five is like, the transitional phase. It can all go downhill from here."

Martyn smiles with the corners of his mouth, looks so much like Phil for a moment that Dan has to squint the image away. " _I_ think they're terrific. Corn, however, thinks they're the devil's spawns - don't tell her cousin that, yeah? But it's fine, we don't usually agree on the nature of kids."

Dan pulls short at this, his hand stilling against his mug for no reason at all. He works his mouth, tries to say something natural.

"Oh," he says eventually, and it's so discordant that Martyn looks up from the comics, his brows comically high. "I mean --"

He trails off. Martyn waits, lifts a hand to slurp his tea audibly. Dan looks at him, looks at Norman, looks back at Martyn. Martyn waits some more. Dan thinks, not for the first time, that the strangeness must run in the family.

So does, apparently, the slight telepathy.

"Say," he starts, and Martyn blinks like he knew this was coming. Seriously, what the fuck. "Do you and Corn plan on -- like, having kids?"

Martyn lowers his mug. It's the whiskers merch one from about 2015. "What are you, my mother? Meh, honestly, I don't know. Maybe soon, maybe never?"

It's said nonchalantly, but hits Dan right in that tender spot between his ribs. He runs an absentminded hand through his hair, glances briefly at Norman, who's still swimming around obliviously. That wanker. "Okay, so you've. Talked about it. Before."

Martyn shrugs with one shoulder. It's the shoulder attached to the hand holding his mug, and the tea spills over the edge a little bit, and Dan's eye twitches. It's like Phil's bad habits are following him around. "A little bit, I guess. It's not that much of an issue for us. But, you know, you never _really_ know -- it might happen."

Dan takes a breath. It's somewhat unsteady. "Well, I mean, you said maybe soon -- what's _soon?_ You'll be turning forty and soon is very relative and, don't you _want_ kids? Like, I get not wanting them at all, but if you've said that you theoretically want kids and you've passed _thirty_ and you're not even like, vaguely planning for it -- I mean. _Don't you want kids anymore?_ "

Dan stops, abruptly. The question's left hanging and drops to its death right there on Martyn's breakfast table. Martyn blinks again, slowly, and Dan thinks that maybe, possibly, this conversation wasn't really about Martyn, and he may have. Overreacted. _A little_.

The fridge makes a weird sound, the sort electronic devices make when they're unnoticed. The chair scrapes against the tiled floor as Martyn pushes out of it. Dan thins his mouth, grimaces apologetically, but Martyn only retrieves a shell with a gift bow on it from his pocket, hands it to Dan, says, "Buddy, I love you, and I mean this with the best of intentions, but -- did you fucking _ask_ him?"

  
  
  


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Phil decorates the apartment while he waits for his Wish packages to arrive in the post, hums carols under his breath extremely offkey. Dan offers unhelpful directions from his position on the sofa, screeches in laughter when Phil balances on a chair to put the star on top of the tree, " _Phil!_ That's completely lopsided, more to the left, you _buffoon_ , are you blind?"

He contributes by painstakingly choosing scented candles that smell like Christmas, sniffing them thoroughly before placing them around the house. There's one that smells like pine tree and one that's almost the smell of Phil's mum's mince pies, but they put that one out after about an hour because it makes them irrationally hungry.

Phil's making sqwacking noises at Norman by the time Dan's finished, carrying his laptop from the bedroom in order to book the plane tickets to Isle of Man. 

"Do you wanna land at one-thirty or four?" he asks, just as Phil's telling Norman, "Don't freak out, Norm, I'll be done in a sec," then triumphantly pulls a wet arm out of the tank where he's just placed a plastic Santa hat to go with the tinsel and the reindeer figurines scattered around it.

"Stop waterassulting him," Dan protests from the table, doesn't mean it too much. Phil titters, comes to stand behind Dan's shoulders to look at the airway website, fingers resting lightly on Dan's shoulder blades. 

"It's our fishson's first holiday," he says, leans over to see more clearly. Dan opens his mouth to say something, doesn't know what, closes it again. Phil's hands, even through Dan's jumper, are warm.

  
  
  


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On Saturday, Dan finally snaps.

He finds Phil sitting on the floor by the washing machine after stumping through the house looking for him, shouting unnecessarily. Phil looks up at the doorway, mid-fold, blinks innocently.

"Oh,” he says, addressing the situation, “I read somewhere that sorting laundry sitting down gets an emotional connection to the clothes." His mouth twitches in an attempt not to laugh at his own humor. "Y'know, less socks escaping 'cause we're unfit feethosts."

"Unfit feethosts," Dan repeats aloud, unimpressed, pretends his heart isn’t racing. Phil cracks, laughter erupting, and Dan rolls his eyes as he slides down the wall to sit beside him.

Phil knows. It’s obvious, because Phil always knows. “What’s up? You’ve been weird for days and it isn’t your usual Christmas-weird.”

But Dan already snapped, so there’s a cavity in his chest large enough for all his words to spill out, helplessly, leaking out of him. “Phil, do you still want kids? Martyn told me to ask you, but I felt like it’s a stupidass question because like, _duh_ , but also you’ve been talking about nothing but puppies for about a year and yeah, I realize that when I say it out loud it’s ridiculous, I’ve _thought about this_ , obviously I get that there’s no dog-child correlation but I’m honestly at the meltdown point, which I think is noticeable. I don’t even know what I’m saying, you know me, I’m just -- do you want children? I need to know. Maybe. I’m starting to think maybe this wasn’t my real main problem here.”

Phil says, very intelligently, “Wow.” But he doesn’t look freaked out, which doesn’t surprise Dan, they’ve had conversations far more bizarre than this one. Dan still says, somewhat lamely, “Uh, I’m sorry, that was a lot. I’ve been holding it in, I know we talked about how I shouldn’t do that anymore. Sorry.”

Phil smiles, brief as a sunbeam, presses a soft kiss to Dan’s chin. He says, “Okay, let’s try going at it slowly, alright? I’m gonna try, stop me at any point.” 

He pauses, drops the clothes to wring his hands in his lap. He only does that during truly serious conversations and it always tethers Dan to earth, sets him into the right mood. “I just -- this whole project sphere, right? I’ve been thinking about it a whole lot lately, and it’s so daunting, I never thought it’d be so scary trying to live your life! But it is, and I think about investing in a house and trying for a family and maybe getting married and I get anxious, like I do in front of crowds? It’s weird, I don’t -- but. A dog just feels like a natural first step, doesn’t it? Starting small. And the kids later, which -- yeah, idiot, I want those. Just, maybe dog first, tiny humans later? A bit more of a natural progression? Seems right.”

Dan takes a deep breath. Stops. Breathes again, and says, “Yeah, I know. That’s what terrifies me. I don’t know if I’m ready.”

They fall silent. Dan takes in his own admission, wasn't sure what was going to come out of his mouth before he said it. Phil turns his head, looks Dan in the eye; he has difficulty with it, always has, glance darting between both eyes, and Dan feels his mouth curve waywardly.

Phil tilts his head to the left. “So your allegedly unsexy bits make you scared of moving forward and that’s why you’re against having a dog? Dan Howell, that’s a hate crime.” 

“Shut the fuck _up_ ,” Dan says, perhaps too fondly, the lighter tone breaking the tension and settling his twisting stomach. "Also, fuck you and your cheap psychology, alright, let me be stupid in fucking peace, Jesus.”

Phil reaches forward, resumes absentmindedly sorting laundry into whites and colours; Dan copies him, puts Phil's pink checkered boxers into the pile to occupy his hands. 

"I guess," Dan begins again, more slowly this time. His hand unwraps a balled pair of socks of its own accord. "In my head, children are, uh, an inevitability? Because I've always known I'm gonna be a dad. But it's also, like, _too_ far away to actually be in reach, so it's _easier_ to want the kids because that's, well -"

"It doesn’t require any action right now," Phil completes, more of an afterhanded continuation of the same train of thought than an interruption, "and Timmy the dog is an immediate responsibility."

"Oh, screw you, we're not naming it Timmy," Dan huffs, smile dimpling. "But yeah, yeah. It's scarier to think about a dog, it's more _possible_ , so I just. Didn't. And also, the _maybe you secretly hate children_ shit was so not helping my futuristic crisis, dickbag."

Phil smiles at him crookedly, shoves another shirt to the whites pile with his foot. "They _are_ kind of terrifying -- the whole big head big eyes conspiracy, all so that'd you love them blindly? The news should be all about _that_ rather than Illuminati."

Dan snorts through a short burst of laughter, his head dropping back against the wall. "This is some hardcore Freud-level bullshit, Phil. My brain is a Professionals Only zone, this is dangerous."

The articles of clothing left to sort dwindle into nothing in front of them, and Phil rises to his knees, shoves the coloured pile into the washing machine messily. He turns back and taps his knuckle against Dan’s temple gently, says, “I _am_ a Dan Professional, so you just gotta talk to me better, okay? Give me twenty seconds to remember how much fabric softener to put in and we’ll go upstairs and have a genuine talk about this over some tea. No arguing!”

Dan doesn’t argue. He mumbles, “ _Talk to me better_ , a fucking English degree,” but goes upstairs to start the kettle, his heart light as a feather on his sleeves.

  
  
  


.

  
  
  
  


London starts getting cooler come mid-December.

They spend most afternoons making hot drinks and planning Christmas movie marathons. Phil continues his habit of pretweeting the holiday, is now on his eleventh _eve_ in _Merry Christmas Eve Eve_ ; Dan doesn't judge, they've come to the agreement that post December first everything is fair game.

At eight am on a foggy morning, Dan wakes up from a vivid dream, flings over an arm to wake Phil as well. Phil opens bleary eyes at him, frowns, and Dan says with finality: "Let's get a dog."

  
  
  


.

  
  
  
  


They name it Buster, nickname it Bates. It seems only fitting.


End file.
